


Always for the Ideal

by kjack89



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Blood, Car Accidents, I'm Sorry, M/M, This started so fluffy and then it all went wrong
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-26
Updated: 2013-08-26
Packaged: 2017-12-24 17:54:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,256
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/942913
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kjack89/pseuds/kjack89
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Watching <em>Captain America</em> sparks an argument over noble deeds, but when tragedy strikes, both Enjolras and Grantaire are proven terribly wrong.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Always for the Ideal

**Author's Note:**

> This started as me wanting to write something cute about Enjolras and Grantaire arguing about Captain America and became something else entirely and I am so, so sorry.
> 
> Title comes from the Brick: “Because, and this is a noble thing, it is always for the ideal, and for the ideal alone, that those who sacrifice themselves do thus sacrifice themselves.”
> 
> Usual disclaimer: I own nothing save my typos.

"That was a really good movie," said Enjolras finally, after the credits had rolled (after the during credits scene that Grantaire insisted they watch was over) and Grantaire shifted slightly from his position nestled against Enjolras’s side to frown at him.

"Really?" he said skeptically. "I guess Captain America’s just not really my scene. A little too perfect for my tastes. I prefer Iron Man, the kind of anti-hero, you know?"

Enjolras chuckled and bent to kiss him. “Why am I not surprised? The sarcastic one who drinks a lot - hmmm, sound familiar?”

Grantaire kissed him back but then said, frowning slightly, “He’s not  _just_  the sarcastic one who drinks a lot. He’s a genius billionaire playboy philanthropist.” Suddenly he brightened, his grin turning cheeky. “Now  _that_ sounds like someone I know,” he said, poking Enjolras in the stomach.

Rolling his eyes, Enjolras retorted, “My parents are millionaires, not billionaires, my IQ is not genius-level – despite the nine different tests my parents insisted I take to try and prove otherwise – and for your sake I hope I’m not a playboy.” He pressed a kiss to the top of Grantaire’s head. “I won’t deny my philanthropic leanings though.”

Grantaire burrowed back against Enjolras and Enjolras automatically began stroking his hair, running his fingers through the dark curls, musing, “Steve Rogers is just kind of the ideal, you know? Noble, brave, willing to do what it takes to fight for his country, including making the ultimate sacrifice.”

"You think that’s  _ideal_?” Grantaire asked. He grabbed the remote and skipped back to the place where Steve jumped on the grenade. “If you were in his situation, would you have done the same?”

Without even a second’s hesitation, Enjolras replied, “Of course.” Grantaire stiffened against him, and Enjolras frowned. “Why, what did you expect?”

“I just…” Grantaire trailed off, hurt and feigned nonchalance battling in his voice and coming out as quiet sadness. “I just thought that there might be other considerations.” When Enjolras’s brow furrowed in confusion, Grantaire elaborated, “You know, like the fact that you’d be leaving me behind.”

There was a brief moment of silence as Enjolras mulled his reply, not wanting to upset Grantaire but also wanting to explain himself. Finally, he pressed a kiss to Grantaire’s temple and told him in a low voice, “I love you. More than anything else in this world. But sometimes…sometimes there are more important things to think about than that. And Jesus Christ, I can’t believe I’m about to quote  _Star Trek_  to make my point, but the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. Or the one in this case. The world is a much bigger place than just you and I, Taire, no matter how much I love you.”

Grantaire huffed a sigh, laying his head down against Enjolras’s chest, hearing and feeling the steady beat of Enjolras’s heart, and muttered, “All things considered, I guess that’s the best I can ask for.”

Enjolras rubbed his back gently. “What about you?” he asked, trying for teasing but almost certainly failing. “Any noble sacrifices in your future?”

Despite Enjolras’s teasing tone, the silence between them stretched for several minutes until Grantaire said, in a voice pitched so low Enjolras could barely hear him, “The only person I would sacrifice myself for is you.”

There was so much Enjolras wanted to say, so many points he wanted to make about how wrong that line of thought was, hell, how  _dangerous_  that line of thought was, but instead, he gathered Grantaire close to him, holding him as tightly as he could and kissing him as strongly as he was able, until finally Grantaire wriggled from his grasp, blushing slightly, and said, “Let’s just put  _Thor_  on, alright?”

* * *

 

Not even two weeks later, Enjolras and Grantaire were at one of Les Amis’ protests, or more accurately, Enjolras was up on the makeshift stage leading the protest, while Grantaire hung out in the background, just as he always did (just as they always did). The protest went surprisingly well, and when the police showed up to disperse the crowd, they went without much complaint.

Enjolras chattered excitedly as he walked hand-in-hand with Grantaire towards their apartment. “Did you see what happened today? People are showing up, they’re listening. Even the police were polite about everything. Things are changing.”

"Or the police were just polite because you actually thought to get a permit for the protest today, and they were only breaking it up because the crowd grew too large," Grantaire pointed out, though his voice was mild, and he squeezed Enjolras’s hand reassuringly.

Enjolras just laughed, riding too high on the adrenaline of a successful protest to pay any real attention to Grantaire’s cynicism and snark. Instead, he pulled Grantaire to him and kissed him soundly. “Not even you can bring me down today,” he said, his voice low and happy. “We’ve done something really good, Grantaire, and even you will see that.”

Grantaire half-smiled and kissed Enjolras back. “You seem confident that I will, and that’s enough for me. You know that I believe in you. I always have.”

Their kiss lasted a few seconds more and then Enjolras put his arm around Grantaire’s shoulders, holding him close as they walked. Grantaire was able to close his eyes and rest his head against Enjolras, letting the comforting buzz of Enjolras’s voice wash over him, far more interested - as always - in the smooth rise and fall of Enjolras’s voice rather than what he was actually saying. Then Enjolras’s arm seemed to tighten around Grantaire and the tone of his voice changed. “That car is driving like a maniac.”

Grantaire opened his eyes to see exactly what Enjolras was referring to, a car weaving in and out of traffic, swerving within its lane and crossing into the others. He also saw what Enjolras didn’t, and tensed for only a brief moment before ducking away from Enjolras’s arm and darting towards the crosswalk. “Grantaire!” Enjolras shouted after him, alarmed, freezing in horror when he saw what Grantaire had noticed: a mother, pushing a stroller with one hand and holding on the hand of her other child with the other, had just stepped into the crosswalk, directly into the path of the erratic driver.

Grantaire sprinted towards her, eyes narrowed with determination, and at the last second he just reached her, pushing her solidly on her back to send her and her child, and the stroller with them, stumbling forward and out of harm’s way.

But Grantaire was not so lucky.

The car that would have hit the mother and her children instead connected with Grantaire’s body, with a sickening crunch at the impact. Grantaire was sent flying through the air, landing with yet another sickening noise, and then lay still. Far, far too still.

Enjolras swayed where he stood, still rooted to his spot with terror that clawed up his spine and froze within his chest. He was completely unable to move, to speak, his mouth completely dry, his mind completely blank.

Then he was running, running faster than he ever had in his life, because he was running for his life, for his life which lay still against the asphalt in a rapidly growing pool of blood.

He skidded to a halt at Grantaire’s side and dropped to his knees, hands shaking as he tried to think of what to do. Any words Joly had ever told him about how to help someone with an injury were mush in his head, so he grabbed Grantaire’s hand, looking desperately for any sign of life in Grantaire’s pale ( _oh God, so pale, too pale, oh my God oh my God oh my God_ ) face. “Grantaire?” he whispered, barely daring to breathe. “Oh God, Grantaire, say something please!”

Grantaire managed to crack his eyes open just a little, though they seemed blurred. “Hey,” he breathed, his voice so quiet that Enjolras had to strain to hear him (and Enjolras’s heart seemed torn between leaping with joy that Grantaire was still alive and breaking because of how weak he sounded). “Don’t look so sad.”

"How can I not look sad?" Enjolras asked desperately, though he was doing his best to try and keep himself calm (to try and keep Grantaire calm). He could hear sounds from around them, gasps and even muffled screams, someone talking overly loudly to 911 on the phone (" _I’d like to report an accident…It doesn’t look good. There’s a lot of blood…_ ”) “You…Grantaire…”

"Shh," Grantaire whispered, trying to smile as best he could, his eyes still vacant. "You said yourself the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few."

That was all it took to nearly send Enjolras over the edge, to send the tears that had welled in his eyes, clinging to his lashes, spilling down his cheeks. “And you said I was the only one worth sacrificing yourself for,” he whispered, clutching Grantaire’s hand even tighter, while Grantaire just chuckled slightly (Enjolras tried not to think about the fact that his chuckle sounded far more like a gurgle than anything).

“I lied.” Even here, even now, Grantaire sought to comfort Enjolras, trying to lift his hand to stroke Enjolras’s cheek, and Enjolras lifted it for him, holding his hand against his cheek, half-hoping he didn’t notice the tears that were coursing down his face. “Sometimes I do that,” Grantaire continued, his voice fading. “I lie.”

Enjolras took a deep breath, trying in vain to keep it together just a little longer. “You can lie as much as you want, just stay with me, alright, Taire? Stay with me. Please.”

Grantaire’s smile turned soft. “I love you,” he whispered, smiling despite the blood that was beginning to leak from the corner of his mouth, the blood that spotted his teeth, the blood that matched the blood pool growing even larger underneath his prone body. “But hey, at least it was noble, right?”

Squeezing Grantaire’s hand as tightly as he could, Enjolras told him, voice cracking, “It was noble and it was brave and you are so beautiful and wonderful and amazing and I love you so much, Taire, I love you so, so much, so don’t you dare leave me, don’t you dare—”

But the smile on Grantaire’s face was fixed, and his eyes had turned glassy, his hand within Enjolras’s gone limp. For a moment Enjolras just stared at him, unable or unwilling to realize what had happened. Then he half-screamed, half-sobbed, in a voice as if his very soul was being wrenched from his body (and in a way, wasn’t it?), “No, no, NO, GRANTAIRE!”

It was too late. And so Enjolras knelt by Grantaire’s side, still clutching his hand, sobbing brokenly, until the paramedics arrived, far too late to do anything to fix that which had been irreparably and forever broken.

* * *

 

A lone figure walked slowly through the cemetery, head bowed against the wind, hands jammed into the pockets of a green hoodie that was a touch too big and had the air of belonging to someone else. He stopped in front of a simple gray headstone, reaching out to touch the top of it, using it almost to steady himself. Then he pulled the hood down, revealing sad blue eyes surrounded by dark circles, cheekbones that were too sharp, as if he had not been eating well, and blond hair that hung in limp curls, any radiance once contained within the gold long since gone.

Enjolras traced his fingers along the top of the stone, and he sighed and said, so much longing contained within the single name, “Grantaire…”

Pausing, he closed his eyes for a brief moment, as if trying to gather his thoughts. Then he blinked and said quietly, “You used to tell me that I was never able to admit that I was wrong, to apologize. But I’m…I’m here now to tell you I was wrong.”

His grip on the headstone tightened and he continued, “I was wrong about so many things, but most importantly, I was wrong that it was noble or ideal to die for something like that. There…there’s no such thing as a noble death, and I know that now. How can there be a noble death when it hurts so goddamn much? How can it be ideal when it makes me wish I had died with you? How—”

He broke off, starting to cry, and hastily wiped the palm of his hand across his cheeks, brushing them away before more tears could fall. “I was wrong. And I admit that. And I’m sorry, Taire, I am so, so sorry because I was wrong and you were right and I have lived every day of the past six months knowing that you were right. I’m sorry. But you proved your point, ok? You proved your point and you can come back now, because I know I was wrong and I admit it, so you can come back. You can come back to me now.”

For just a moment he waited, as if his apology, his admission would actually, could actually bring Grantaire back. But when silence was the only answer he received, Enjolras sank down next to Grantaire’s headstone, burying his face in his hands as he sobbed brokenly, the sobs of a man who had lost not only the best part of his life but also the embodiment of every ideal for which he had once pledged to die if necessary. 


End file.
